Tag Archives: Christianity

The last five plus years have been life changing. God changed the trajectory of my life when He moved me to Colorado. I realize not everyone has to move to experience such a life change, but I guess for me that was necessary. I’ve been a Christian for a very long time, but it means something so much deeper to me now.

A few years back I took a trip to Haiti. Some of you know about that journey. The life-changing lesson I learned is I’m no longer a slave to fear! I AM A CHILD OF GOD!

The last two and half years our church has been studying the book of Luke and for the last year a couple friends and I have been studying the Passion version of the Songs of Songs. From these studies I’ve learned I am totally and completely forgiven for my sins, and I am deeply and intimately loved.

The cumulative effect of those lessons is that I’m free to be the woman God intended me to be. I’m not the same person I was before.

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Disclaimer: I’m sure this topic may elicit some strong feelings from some of you. Please feel free to share your thoughts, but don’t expect any heated debates.

For more than a year, I’ve been reading or studying the issue of women in the church. All the reading and thinking, has left me feeling as if my sense of justice has been violated.

During this study time, I’ve come to recognize the power, or should I say, abuse of power by a few. The Judeo/Christian culture is primarily a patriarchal culture. I accept this as the world I live in. However, when I see how one uses their position of power and/or trust to contrive a message to fit their life view instead of accepting the original text may have been written to challenge or question that very life view, it strikes me as an abuse of power and trust. My sense of justice, or the sense that one should do the right thing because it is the right thing, feels very violated.

While sharing these thoughts with a close friend, she helped me put some perspective on this. She could understand my feelings; but told me when she feels something is unjust, she tries to step back and look at it from the scales of eternal justice. She said those who abused their power and trust, would one day be held accountable. Wow! Those words created a strong visual, and immediately brought to mind James 3:1

Not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers,
because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly.

The good news is the sense of justice being violated was replaced with peace; with the promise and assurance the eternal scales will validate the truth.

Current day teachings associated with this topic should address the failings of those who translated the original manuscripts, or of those who led the early church into placing such emphasis on scriptures designed for a particular location or a particular set of circumstances. Will that happen?

That still leaves the question of, how ‘women in the church’ is to be lived out today?

For those of you who know me, this is a reversal of my former thoughts on the subject. I want to be clear, I believe God intended for women and men to be spiritually active in the church and among others. This change in my thoughts is not a matter of feminism or equal rights. For a woman, or a man to be involved in spiritual leadership, they have to possess the spiritual gifts of the position they are filling. Those gifts are not bestowed because of gender. People (men and women) receive these gifts from a loving God when they are in relationship with Him.

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I’ve been pondering the Revival or Refining question for a few days. Thanks to each of you who reacted to this post.

A friend on FaceBook posted a comment that simply said “Both”.

His response resonated with me. I believe he is correct.

God’s church is the people! So when we consider anything the church is experiencing we need to consider what the individuals are experiencing.

Refining happens when we submit to changes God wants to make in our lives. These changes should be happening to all believers regularly. Then those changes should bring about revival within us. We should be strengthened, changed and desire to be closer to God.

Refining may have gotten a hard wrap. People tend to consider it something negative. Sometimes the process is difficult, but that may be the result of our resistance. The results of refining are what most of us desire.

To be free from impurities

To be free from moral imperfection

To improve or perfect

To be free from what is coarse, vulgar or uncouth

If these things are going on in your life, you are changing. Those changes are reason enough to celebrate “revival”.

Here’s the definition for revival so you can see if it might already be occurring in your life:

An improvement in the condition or strength of something

An instance of something becoming popular, active or important again

I think The Church should be ready for both “refining” and “revival”. We should encourage one another to submit to the refining and live in revival!

I’ve been helping one of my dear friends pack up her house to prepare for a move to another community. It has been my pleasure to watch she and her husband embark on this adventure. They’ve lived in this valley for so many years. They raised their children here, owned businesses, know many people and have more memories of this place than I can imagine. Yet, they heard God say it was time to move.

I heard she told her son how thrilled she is to have someone help with the packing, one that had moved many times with the military. Wow! I think so seldom of those years and when I do, my thoughts are of places I traveled to or people I met who impacted my life. The rigors of packing, moving and unpacking are not high on those memories. Yet God in His infinite grace makes something out of what we may perceive as nothing. I’m honored that a friend can use something past, which seems like part of another life, today.

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While in Haiti I was impressed by the people. They are poor. Poor beyond anything I could imagine. Yet these people were dignified, gracious and grateful. The following photo is a candid shot of one of these couples. I also shot the formal pose, which was their preference.

Grateful Homeowners (rural farmers)

I volunteered with Poured-Out, installing bio-sand water filters in homes. The people have requested these filters, signed up for and paid 200 Gourde (approximately 4.00 US dollars.) This small contribution to the cost of the filters denotes ownership in the process. These people were interested and invested in learning about the benefits of the filters and the maintenance. As part of the extensive survey they participated in, they were asked if there were things they wanted shared with people in the United States to understand what the filters mean to them and why their contributions are so meaningful. I was blown away by the responses! Below are some of the responses I would like to share. Hopefully these words will give you some insight into the gratitude I was able to witness during my work in Haiti.

Thank you, this kind help will be easy for us to save more money, to keep our health – May God bless you. I hope this favor continues in Haiti.

Thank you a lot, encourage you for this good work, it is a great work, we really like it. We will pray for more people to give to this work, so God will touch their hearts. We are very happy with the work.

Thank you so much for the work you are doing. Be strong in the world. Cover much area with filters. She will pray we will be blessed and can continue this work.

God sent you to Haiti to bring clean water. Thank you so much for helping another country. We will pray for you.

I feel it is a big lesson, just sitting here while you install a filter for my family. Now we don’t have to worry about diarrhea or other diseases because now our water will be clean. This is a big opportunity for all of us. A big thank you to all of you.

I congratulate you! I think it is a big thing. My family has a filter. I hope others will have filters also. That’s why I will continue to pray for you so that God can continue to bless you to have a giving heart. Thank you.

Thank you for the good work. Continue the good work. Don’t get discouraged. Even though you do the work for us, God will bless you. Thank you and God bless you.

We need to get the word out so more people can have filters. More people need them. Doing this is a big job in Haiti. You are killing cholera in Haiti. Thank you so much. Pray that God can bless you as an organization and keep on working. Pray that God would continue to provide the money for this work.

I have satisfaction you have given us this filter. I want to thank you for doing this work. I know the area next to mine needs filters too, so can you guys bring more? We have other areas, communities, people who have sickness and cholera and they need filters and would love it if you could bring some there too.

This is a big help because we have a lot of disease in this country. This filter will help us a lot because clean water is the most important thing in our lives. Thank you.

I am so happy about the work I know that God put that in your heart to help us. I want to say thank you again. May God bless you to continue to do this job.

I say thank you for this support. It will help me not to buy water again. Money it will be used for other. Thank you a lot. May the Love of God follow you.

We say thank you for this effort for this help in Haiti. We encourage you to continue doing this job because God will bless you. May God protect you and bless you. Thanks for having God in your life.

We say thank you. May God continue to bless you and give you the ability to continue installing these filters. May God bless you.

Thank you so much because you leave home, your family to come. We will pray for you I pray that God will protect and take care of you. God is the one who is in control of you.

We thank you for this gift that you guys give. If we were buying it would cost a lot of money, but to have one is a big gift.

We say thank you for the team that our eves see right now because God gave you the opportunity to think of Haitian people, after the two big shocks that we have had in our country of the earthquake and cholera outbreak. We say thank you to all the people who contribute to buying this for the Haitian people. May God bless you.

First of all we thank God, that makes the idea in your mind to think of Haiti, and we thank God because he made it possible to do this good work. We pray the blessing of God over everyone who is doing this work. We were in need of this because we used to have to buy water to drink now we won’t have to buy it anymore.

The Sunday I felt God calling me to go on this Haiti trip with Poured-Out left me filled with many fears. Previously, I would have used all those ‘fears’ as the reason to just stuff the thoughts and go on with life. I was just finishing up a Bible study with an amazing group of women on discerning the voice of God. We were on the lesson about God’s expectations when you hear from Him. SimplyOBEY. Yikes! Knowing the truth and not complying is sin.

I asked a friend if she would go with me. She said yes. So with much fear, I signed up for the trip and started praying about the adventure and what God would have.

Without going into tons of details, it is safe to say my list of fears was long. Some of the issues were:

all the necessary shots and drugs I would need to take for this trip

having to ask people to partner with me on this adventure, both financially and in prayer

how my personal health would fare in this hot humid environment

the bugs in Haiti

and the list goes on

What I found was one at a time, as I turned to God in prayer I was able to see my fears listed on a sheet of paper and each one was slowly being erased from the list.

In Haiti, I realized as I had turned my thoughts to Jesus and what He was asking me to prepare for and focusing on those aspects of the upcoming trip – He was working to take care of each of those issues.

Before I had even started my partnering letter, a friend ask me to make sure she got a copy because she wanted to help support me on the trip. Her gesture was huge in giving me the confidence to write my letter and contact others. The generosity of those partnering with me was also huge and I’m grateful and have been greatly blessed.

The shots and drugs were taken with no adverse affects.

Though I was in an extremely hot, humid environment – and I know there was mold present as I could see it even on some of the plants at the compound where we stayed, I experienced no impact to my respiratory system.

Yes, I used insect repellent and sunscreen and was only mildly bitten by the bugs there.

When Jesus is the focus and you are worshipping Him and focusing on what He wants you to do, there is no room for fear.

1 John 4:18

There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.

It is my prayer, that God our Father will continue to work His love in my life. May He do so for you also!

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Go Learn Love is the motto our church uses for our missions programs. Haiti is the place in June. This week I completed the last of the immunizations I need before leaving on this exciting trip.

Thank you! Those of you who have been praying for me, and the team – God has been answering your prayers. He has been erasing my fears one at a time and building my confidence about this trip. He has also been building relationships between team members. This last Sunday as a group, we did a fundraiser. We fixed the after church brunch, provided music during lunch and had a great time working together. Lunch was a success! The money earned from this effort will be distributed between the team members. Then we had a Skype session with one of the folks from Poured-Out giving us more detailed information about our trip. June will be here before we know it!

I’d like to thank those of you who have graciously contributed to my expenses for the trip. I have about a month left and a small amount to raise to cover my trip expenses, and am confidant God has this under control. If after praying about this, you feel God is asking you to contribute to this great effort, please private message me so I can provide you the necessary information.

It will be my pleasure to share the adventures of this trip with you.

Stay tuned…

I pray blessings to each of you, who have been supporting this trip through your prayers. I believe God will use your prayers and financial support in a mighty way.

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I’ve been reading CS Lewis’ book, Mere Christianity. The following passage from the book has stuck with me.

“Why did God make a creature of such rotten stuff that it went wrong? The better stuff a creature is made of – the cleverer and stronger and freer it is – the better it will be if it goes right, but also the worse it will be if it goes wrong.”

I think of some people I know who have lives that are pretty messed up. In fact, they appear to be in a total destruction mode. It bothers me. Then when I read this and spent some time pondering the statement, it made me realize those people have a capacity to be good to the same extent they have chosen badly. It is all about life choices and God’s grace. I was left with the knowledge (or reminder); all I can do for them is to pray for them. It is not mine to change them. Oh, but the day God decides to change them, they will have quite a story to tell! May He give me the grace to patiently remain in prayer!

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I read the following quote on Jeff Moore’s Everyday Power Blog. The article contained much more information, but this quote is the one that stood out for me.

“Don’t make a habit out of choosing what feels good over what’s actually good for you.” - Eric Thomas

How many times do we get caught up in our culture or lives making decisions simply based upon what ‘feels good’?

Do we even spend time thinking about ‘what is actually good for us’?

I know this last year as I’ve jumped off the ‘busy’ train and started to be more conscious about how I spend my time I’ve given thought to how growing more and more into the image of Christ should be lived out.

Do you ever think about these things and if so, how do you put it into practice?